Lord Sugar mixed up the teams around the final 6 candidates; 5 female (Trishna, Grainne, Frances, Jessica and Alana) and one male (Courtney). The newly configured Titans consisted of Trishna, Frances and Grainne, who took on the PM role. For Nebula, Alana and Courtney battled to be PM, with Jessica casting her vote for Courtney. Not too surprising, considering that Alana is ignored or side tracked on a weekly basis, and Courtney and Jessica had such fun working together on the last task. The irony of the solitary male getting a leadership role was presumably lost of the rest of the team.

The task this week was to create a new designer gin and pitch it to retailers. The team with the most orders would win. The challenge with teams of three is that one member has to work on their own. This is the first big decision for the PM. For Courtney, it was difficult – working with mate Jessica meant that he would have to trust Alana to work on her own. Courtney stated up front that he had a problem with this. Great start! Over in Titans, Frances would work on branding on her own, leaving Grainne & Trishna (GnT) to create the flavour.

Both teams brainstormed what type of gin they wanted to go for. Titans opted for a spice flavouring, whereas Nebula went for a fruit based flavour. The teams split up to complete their tasks. For the design teams, there was access to an expert in blending flavoured gins, yet both teams chose to ignore key bits of advice; Trishna was keen on adding orange colouring to their spicy gin, despite being advised that it is frowned upon. Any colouring should be a result of the flavourings only. Alana opted for Raspberry as a key ingredient (with pink pepper) despite the expert saying he had no experience of using it and did not think it had ever been used!

What followed was a series of incidents that reinforce the mediocre nature of this year’s batch of candidates;

For Titans;

Frances chose the name “Colony” and a world map as the major branding. This is at best an insensitive choice

GnT consumed so much gin in trying out combinations of flavours that they were inebriated

Frances tried 19 times to contact Grainne to get ingredients information for the label. Grainne had left the phone in another room

For Nebula;

Despite a raspberry and pink pepper flavour, Courtney and Jessica opted for blue lettering on the bottle

C&J opted for “Giin” as the name of the brand, for no discernible reason

No one knew how to pronounce “Giin”

Not surprisingly, there was tension in the house at the end of day 1 when the teams got together.

Day 2 was all about pitching to 3 retailers; a supermarket, a chain of pubs and a chain of wine bars. There was also an opportunity to get some market research on the streets of London. Both products got mixed feedback; the colouring in “Colony” was disliked, and the raspberry flavouring of “Giin” was too weak.

In the pitches, for Nebula Alana persuaded Courtney to allow her to co-present, but Courtney took the lead. In all three pitches he was boring, with no charisma, but the product was generally liked, despite the problems with the name and the poor branding. Alana was able to rescue the pitches from “death by Courtney”. Jessica was back to her skittish worst and shared negative market research in one pitch, against the explicit orders of Courtney.

Titans had a better first pitch – Frances was slick, Trishna was detailed, but the colouring remained an issue and the team lied that the colour was natural, not added later. In the second pitch, Grainne led and was completely unstructured. This lit the fuse on Trishna who got increasingly angry. Grainne became defensive and Trishna coerced Frances to finally give Grainne feedback-by-phone about the second pitch – 5 minutes before the 3rd pitch. Titans was no longer a team but 3 individuals fighting to save their own neck.

It was no surprise that Titans lost the task – the product was flawed (good taste but the colouring was a fatal flaw) and the branding was insensitive. In truth, Grainne should have gone as she was so awful as PM . Getting drunk and not having her phone with her when she needed to be contacted would be a sacking offence in the real world. Frances could have gone for her poor branding (and she has lost 8/10 tasks), but it was Trishna who paid the price because she pushed hardest for the colouring. This was possibly harsh, but her negative attitude was cited as another reason. The truth is that Trishna, like Paul before here is only a team player when she is in control. She lacked the behavioural flexibility and persuasive power when she was not in control. This allowed Frances and Grainne to team up against her. Ironic!

In reality, more than one should have gone, but next week is Interview week, and this requires the “Final Five”. Just who from Courtney, Frances, Grainne, Alana and Jessica will win is hard to tell. Of course, the unknown business plans are key, but on the evidence of the series, Alana has impressed most along with Frances, despite her poor track record.

With each passing week it gets harder to identify who will eventually triumph in this year’s The Apprentice. This is not because of the high calibre of the candidates, but rather because at different times, each one has a good claim to be the most incompetent. It reminds me of a whodunnit, where the murderer is hidden in plain sight but you’ll never guess who it is. It will probably turn out that the butler did it!

The task this week was to design a new virtual reality game and pitch it at the London ComicCon event to leading industry figures and the public.

“Dillon was not happy, and this was exasperated when Sofiane chose to put him in charge of designing the game”

After some minor adjustments to the team, Lord Sugar seemed to suggest that Sofiane and Trishna take on the PM roles for Titans and Nebula respectively. Clearly feeling he was on a roll after last week’s victory, Dillon put up a strong bid to lead Titans and the task seemed to play to his experience (branding, design) but the rest of the team seemed to take Sugar’s hint and went with Sofiane based on his claim to have been successful in this area. Dillon was not happy, and this was exasperated when Sofiane chose to put him in charge of designing the game rather than the branding that he wanted to do, and would have been a natural choice to do.

In Nebula, Trishna appointed Courtney and Jessica to design the game, with herself and Frances focusing on branding. Both teams had brainstorming sessions to agree on ideas

At this stage of proceedings with only 4 members in each team there is nowhere to hide and each team member has to stand up and be counted. In Titans, Dillon channelled his frustration into designing another under water theme, this time a puzzle game involving collecting shells to make a bigger shell. Alana seemed to realise that it was aimed at 3 year olds, but she failed to assert herself and Dillon ignored or over ruled her at each stage. They ended up with a game called “Magic Shells” and a hero called Coral Kid. What is it with the Dillon and the sea??

In Nebula, Jessica and Courtney certainly had fun as they went for something that would stand out from the competition. They succeeded with “Gordon’s lost his badger”, but not necessarily for the right reasons.

The challenge for the branding teams was to bring to life ideas fleshed out by the design team but that they had not contributed to. This led to frustration for both PMs as they were stuck with products they didn’t exactly believe in. Trishna in particular made this frustration clear, but both she and Sofiane adopted autocratic “It’ll be alright on the night if we just believe in it” approaches.

In the end, although success needs a clear strategy, a shared vision, communication and trust are needed for success it was the quality of each product that determined success. Just as well, as none of the above list were immediately apparent.

Delegating tasks for the pitches and sticking to the script proved crucial. For Titans, Sofiane led the pitch but immediately went off script totally confusing his team, and Grainne was the wrong choice to demonstrate the VR game. Trishna wisely put Jessica up front because she is at least engaging, and after a poor start quickly hit her stride. Why Courtney took a back seat role here was unclear.

In the boardroom it was revealed that Nebula won comfortably, with 5/7 experts liking the idea. Titans got 0/7. Of 300 public votes, Nebula got 222. It was amazing to hear Trishna take credit for the success, despite rubbishing everybody else’s ideas throughout. This was noted by her team mates.

Given the obvious tension between Sofiane and Dillon, it only remained for him to decide who else to bring back. Alana was spared and this was probably a wise decision as she had made a good contribution. She just needs to be more assertive. So Grainne, Dillon and Sofiane made up the final 3. Dillon was fired first for the game design, which was down to him, despite Alana’s ignored pleas. Dillon has consistently demonstrated an inability to listen to other people and an over inflated opinion of his own creative abilities. It was right that he was fired, but equally Sofiane had to go as his autocratic leadership was equally appalling. Grainne was lucky to survive. A double firing for the second time in the series.

As we go into the last 3 weeks we have 6 candidates remaining; 5 female and one male (Courtney). As I said before, there is no obvious best candidate. Jessica seems to have got control of her emotions and is one to watch, but the final scene as she forlornly hoped that best mate Dillon had survived were the highlight of this vey mediocre series.

There was a tangible emotional component – both too much and non-existent – to this week’s episode of BBC’s The Apprentice. We have discussed Emotional Intelligence (EQ) previously in week 2 but it reared up again this week.

The task for each team was to organise an event from scratch and without funds. The team that made the biggest profit would win.

Fresh from it’s first win last week, team Nebula were given Madame Tussauds as a venue for their event. Paul prevailed over Jessica to be PM, and immediately chose Frances to work with him. By way of compensation, he gave Jessica the role of sub-team leader, working with Sofiane, and Trishna. Paul has built a reputation for a very direct, autocratic style of leadership. On the plus side he is very decisive, on the negative side he has had a tendency to emotional outbursts – uncontrolled rage in his case. Jessica and Frances have shown that managing their own emotional state is a challenge for them, and both have been reduced to tears in the past when stress levels have built up. That said, Frances did an excellent job as PM last week. It was no surprise when Paul decided the theme (casino night) and the (initial) ticket price of £65. He got obedience rather than support form the team.

For Team Titans, Dillon assumed the role of PM and immediately allowed his creative side to dominate proceedings. Titans used the London Aquarium as a venue, and a theme of “Under The Sea” (and The Little Mermaid form which the song comes). Courtney and Grainne were reunited as a sub-team. They work well together, but not always with great success. Dillon’s style was less obviously autocratic, but his listening was just as poor as that of Paul.

Success in this task relies on a clear strategy of theme, ticket pricing (to fund the event) and careful planning of ensure maximum return on investment for things like food and entertainment. Lets be honest, communication was appalling in both teams, with personal grievances and a lack of trust throughout. Titans had a clearer pricing strategy, and crucially stuck to it. Nebula had no real pricing strategy, and Jessica as leader of the sub-team selling tickets was a complete maverick. Not only did she not communicate with Paul before she unilaterally reduced the ticket price, she didn’t even tell her sub-team! This resulted in Paul replacing Jessica on Day 2 with Frances, who had declared her undying devotion to Paul as leader on Day 1, but sided with Jessica against Paul once the team lost the task.

For Titans, there was some cohesion and planning and the team received 100% satisfaction from their customers, despite some major cock-ups (Grainne and maths do not go together; Courtney as VIP tour guide; the star fish had more charisma), but they still won the task with double the profits of Nebula.

Nebula were all over the place and their canapés were so poor they had to give 10% of the ticket price back AND give the food for free.

It was no surprise that Nebula won the task, and having stabbed everyone in the back, Paul found it hard to decide who to bring back alongside Jessica, to whom he attributed the failure of the task. He settled on Frances, presumable believing she would support him. In the final three the lack of strong emotional intelligence (EQ) in all three was on display. Paul got angry and even criticised Lord Sugar 3 times! Jessica and Frances took turns to cry, but it worked. The combination of Paul’s appalling leadership and his anger management problems resulted in hime being fired. It is very hard to disagree with the choice.

EQ is defined as “the recognition, management and use of emotional state – both your own and that of others”. In this respect, Paul failed, but Frances and especially Jessica need to find strategies to mange heir own emotional state.

Trishna did well this week, especially on the VIP tour she led, but no one really stands out. For each candidate, it seems like one week it is 2 steps forward, with 3 steps back the next!

Two weeks ago, Lord Sugar put Rebecca on a final warning, but still she failed to put herself forward as PM in the next task. Rebecca subsequently lost that task and was fired. Last week, Frances, who has lost every task, was also given a final warning, but this time Lord Sugar was taking no chances and appointed her PM for Nebula. Lose the task and she was out. Sugar also appointed Karthik – the self described Special K – to lead Titans.

This week’s task is another familiar one – the trade show. This time it was the Boat Show, taking place in Poole. The task involves sourcing a high ticket item and several small ticket items to sell to the trade show audience.

There was an immediate difference in style between the 2 PMs. Frances was decisive in pairing herself with loose cannon Sofiane, and even more importantly separating him from Paul, as they clearly do not work well together. Frances and Sofiane would source the high ticket item, and Paul would organise the sub-team to source small ticket items. This first decision by Frances proved to be both astute and effective.

In Titans, Karthik, proved to be consistently inconsistent. Presented with Samuel, who has a career in selling expensive cars, he decided to go with his instinct and put him into the sub-team he would lead, sourcing small ticket items. Last week’s PM Courtney, and Grainne would source the high ticket item. Again, this proved to be a crucial mistake, and Karthik himself could not explain his decision!

Both teams were introduced to the high ticket items; a jet ski retailing about £4-5K or a speedboat retailing about £20K. Both teams favoured the jet ski, but the more professional approach by Grainne and Courtney secured the deal for Titans, over the more relationship-driven style of Nebula. Frances and Sofiane were left with the very high ticket item, the speedboat. In truth the success or failure of the task would resolve around these 2 items.

With poor weather keeping the crowds down, both teams had their work cut out to sell both small and large ticket items. Team work and a clear strategy would be important. In Titans, Karthik continued to be indecisive; when the jet ski failed to sell, he abdicated responsibility and failed to change things. He could have re-allocated Samuel to draw on his experience, but failed to act. On his part, Samuel failed to push for this, seeming happy to see the sub-team fail without him. In Nebula, the relationship building skills of Frances, despite a lack of effort from Sofiane, proved crucial and they sold 2 boats.

In the boardroom, it was revealed that Nebula – and Frances – had finally won a task. Their sales were over £40K, thanks to the 2 boats they sold. Under Karthik’s leadership, Titans sold a meagre £188 (and no jet skis)! Once Nebula were sent off to enjoy the spoils of victory, Lord Sugar didn’t even wait for the final three; Karthik was fired for a completely unacceptable performance, and rightly so. The rest of Titans were clearly shocked, and a double firing seemed inevitable. Sugar himself chose the remaining members of the small ticket sub-team (Samuel, Dillon and Alana) to come back as the final three, despite the lack of success and clear failings in the jet ski sub-team.

The Titans small tick team sold only £188 with Samuel selling the most. Dillon sold nothing, and could easily have gone on this task alone. Alana was asked about her lack of assertiveness, but it was Samuel’s apparent game playing (according to his team mates) and lack of team work that Sugar focused on. Samuel was fired, but Alana and Dillon really need to toughen up or they will not last long.

Slowly, we are seeing the wheat separated from the chaff. Frances made a good impression this week and Paul is strong, even if his style is unlikable. Trishna has impressed from time-to-time, but Sofiane is a loose cannon. Grainne and Courtney look strong too.

This week the teams focused on utilising and demonstrating a relatively new business tool – Crowdfunding. This is raising funds through public support; offering rewards to members of the public and institutions to help with development costs. The two teams were asked to identify new items involved with bicycle safety and design a marketing campaign to raise funds through crowd funding. Titans, led by sales manager Samuel Boateng focused on a gilet (or is that gillet? Recruitment agent, Trishna didn’t seems sure) with high visibility LED lighting. Nebula chose headphones that allowed the wearer to still be able to hear traffic. They were led by beachwear company owner JD O’Brien.

Crowd funding involves setting up a donations page, where would-be donors can see what they are supporting and what rewards they will get for their support. You then need to have some kind of PR stunt to generate interest, trying to generate leads and drive traffic to the donations page through social media. There was also the opportunity to pitch directly to companies, large and small. Despite the fact that there are several candidates who describe themselves as having digital and traditional marketing experience, once again both teams were underwhelming in their endeavours.

“This lack of urgency is suicide in a competition like The Apprentice”

A key component of these tasks is allocation of personnel. Despite what we have seen in previous weeks, JD put the toxic mix of Paul and Sofiane in the same sub-team. These 2 guys struggle to work together. Paul is controlling and subject to frustration and sulking; Sofiane is a maverick who doesn’t listen. We got to see both of these behaviours. JD effectively abdicated responsibility of the sub-team, who were producing a promotional video for the website. This Laissez-faire style of leadership is fine when you are organising a social event, but has no place in business. This lack of urgency is suicide in a competition like The Apprentice. The leader needs to delegate tasks, but should be aware of what is going on. In this respect, JD failed.

Samuel was far more controlling. He set out his (bizarre) vision for the PR stunt; a mime in Paddington Station which was excruciating to watch. This was a pity, because the video produced by cake company owner Alana was the best thing about their campaign. She was effectively marginalised by Karthik for the rest of the task.

For Nebula, there was a delay in getting the donations page up live on Day 2. Although this was led by Paul, on the previous day JD had failed to agree any rewards for donors! Paul had to rectify this, but the lack of a coherent strategy came to light when the team pitched to potential investors; there was no increased reward for buying 180 units or 12! In addition, their PR stunt, involving a gospel choir at Kings Cross station was poorly thought out, as there was no obvious link to the product.

Kings Cross Station was treated to a Gospel Choir

In the pitches, we got to see more of the same behaviour; Samuel took over and Alana was “benched”, but he was incoherent in opening the pitch. Karthik was in his element and really sold the product. For Nebula, JD was also ineffective and Sofiane went off script. He was supposed to focus on the pricing, but couldn’t resist selling the product. This left pricing to an under prepared Frances. It was no surprise, then, that Nebula lost the task again.

Pitching is an opportunity to Position your products features and benefits. However, to do this, you need to Understand your audience. In this respect, Nebula were especially poor.

In the boardroom, JD was very noble, accepting his part in the failure of the task. He was almost looking for volunteers to accompany him into the final three. He eventually chose Rebecca (who has lost 5/5 tasks) and Paul. Not surprisingly, Paul attacked JD’s leadership, and JD agreed! JD was fired. Once again, he didn’t seem too surprised or bothered. He seemed to believe that falling on his sword was the honourable thing to do, and Paul was happy to apply a coup de grâce. Based on his lack or urgency and poor leadership, JD was a nice guy, but useless PM. It is great to be fair and a nice guy, but abdication is no substitute for delegation.

After the disaster that was Week 2, Lord Sugar took control of things this week and mixed up the teams. He also appointed the PMs for a task that involved the design and selling of confectionary in Brighton. This time, the team with the biggest PROFIT would win.

For the newly re-constituted teams, cake-company owner, Alana Spencer, was given the PM role for Titan, and for Nebula it was sausage distribution business owner, Oliver Nohl-Oser. Both have experience in related industries, but would it be relevant enough to bring them success? The early team discussions were notable for 2 things;

Neither PM was very decisive or assertive. Both team have members with big personalities (egos), so it is crucial that the PM find ways of allocating and controlling individuals such as Karthik, Paul and Sofiane. The early signs weren’t promising, with Paul insisting that he be in the same Nebula sub-team as PM Oliver

A lack of any obvious strategy in either team. These 2 factors would prove crucial later in the task.

The leadership expert John Adair defines leadership as being about getting the balance right between the Task, the Team and the Individual in his Action-Centred Leadership model. Both Alana and Oliver were poor on each count.

Task – although on the surface, both teams were busy, there was no clear strategy outlined by either team, especially in relation to pricing and negotiation

Team – the format of the task with 2 sub-team makes it difficult to co-ordinate the activities of all members, but I’m always amazed at how “hands-on” the PMs are. Better to be able to communicate (two-way) with each sub-team than get overly involved in the task

Individual – Managing personalities, from the passive to the aggressive, makes for great TV, but there are some individuals (see above) who are maverick to the point of destructiveness.

There were more tears this week, this time from Alana who demonstrated that she does not have the emotional resilience (EQ) to handle the pressure. Both Oliver and Alana are probably too nice to last long in this competition.

The Brexit negotiation team should note the lack of success this “bull in a china shop” approach can have

The task unfolded with the lack of focus we have come to expect from this year’s contestants. Apart from Alana’s tears and shortcomings, Titan at least worked as a team, though sub-team leader, sales executive Sofiane , worked hard to lose the task, especially in his “hard” negotiation style with Brighton Football Club. The Brexit negotiation team should note the lack of success this “bull in a china shop” approach can have. For Nebula, marketing agency owner Paul chipped away at PM Oliver from the outset. First he was criticising him from within the same sub-team, then he manoeuvred himself into a different sub-team for Day 2, took the huff and opted out. Paul comes across as controlling. He had some good points to make, but played his card of self interest first all too often. The rest of the team are now alerted to his tactics.

It was only a marginal surprise that Nebula lost the task, but less surprising was the dithering that Oliver demonstrated in choosing who to bring back into the “final three”. It was brave to bring Paul back, but it would give us a chance to see if Oliver could be assertive and stand up for himself. He couldn’t. Oliver also brought back Mukai, who was once again ineffective and, after he failed last week as PM, was on a warning and looked vulnerable. The fact that Oliver was fired and both Mukai and Paul survived was very telling. On this week’s performance alone, Oliver deserved to go as he was most responsible for the failure of the task (he had no pricing strategy) but Mukai was very lucky to survive. Good guys don’t last long in this programme, but hopefully neither do bullies such as Sofiane and Paul.

M.A.D – Mutually Assured Destruction – was a phrase coined in the Cold War to describe the consequence of nuclear war. It could also be applied to describe this week’s episode of The Apprentice. This week’s advertising task resulted in that rare thing – a tie. But this time, both teams managed to LOSE the task, such was the poor standard of their campaigns!

Digital Marketing Manager Mukai Noiri seemed the perfect choice to lead the “Titans”, but over in the girl’s camp there was a battle between Online Fashion Entrepreneur, Jessica Cunningham, and Design and Marketing Agency owner, Rebecca Jeffery. Manic Jessica won out thanks to dodgy voting not seen since the Labour Party leadership election. Both were (technically) within the rules.

Jessica Cunningham

So, what led to the disasters that each team put forward? We should start with the leadership from each PM. Jessica had already shown us that she is “high energy”, but I don’t think that the girls were expecting the emotionally unstable wreck that they got, especially on day 1. Jessica was autocratic, unfocused and demonstrated such low Emotional Intelligence (EQ) that it required other members of the team to take over at certain parts of the task. One aspect of EQ is the ability to manage your own emotional state. Jessica struggled to do this.

For the boys, Mukai was the exact opposite; in place of the manic energy of Jessica was the emotional engagement of The Terminator (especially on Day 1). Mukai, was the embodiment of coolness, from his clothes to his manner. The problem here was that he was beyond aloof- he was absent. Mukai was autocratic with the sub-team he led, but abdicated all responsibility for Dylan’s sub-team. Again, this approach is reflected in his EQ. Unlike Jessica, Mukai was completely in control of his own emotional state. However, another aspect of EQ is reading and managing the emotional state of others. This is not conducive to an abdicating style, as he failed to read the frustration of other members of the team.

Good EQ requires a leader to manage both their own emotional state and that of others. For Jessica, she needs to identify a strategy to manage her emotional state. I cannot see how she will be able to do this, given the stressful nature of the competition. For Mukai, he did eventually start to become aware of the feelings of others, but he needs to be more emotionally engaged with his team if he wants to build trust and get the best out of people.

A third individual who has real EQ issues is IT Consultancy Owner Karthik Nagesan. as a Consultancy Owner, I suspect that Karthik probably works on his own a lot. His social skills (another key component of EQ) are appalling. He doesn’t listen, and though he had good points to make, he made them in a way that united everyone against him.

Any one of Karthik, Mukai and Jessica could have, possibly should have, gone. In the boardroom though, having decided that both teams had failed the task, we ended up with 6 people in the “final 3”. Lord Sugar instead focused on Hair and Beauty Salon Owner Natalie Hughes for her lack of contribution in the first 2 weeks, but especially on this task. One wonders why Natalie came on the programme? On “You’re Fired” it was revealed that she has never watched the programme and seemed uninterested in progressing. It never pays to hide on a task, as this is something Sugar really hates. In that respect, it was the correct decision. She also barely contributed to “You’re Fired”! but there were cases for firing Karthik, Jessica and Mukai too.

It’s back! Another 12 weeks of madness, mayhem and just a little (sometimes a very little) bit of business acumen. On the evidence of the first week, the latest bunch of competitors to be Lord Sugar’s business partner ( and earn £250K along the way) are just as entertaining as in the previous 11 years. But, who is the real deal and who is just there for entertainment value? We will discover this over the next 3 months.

The first episode saw the traditional unveiling of the 18 candidates. Working in gender teams, the task was the familiar variation on “Bargain Hunt”. Both teams were given to a lock-up with many items, some were rubbish, but there were apparently some hidden gems too. Sugar made it clear that the winning team would be the one that made the most money (cash not profit). Of course, to do this you need to know the value of the items, and each team was given the opportunity to select items to get valued by experts in the field.

The first task was to appoint Project Managers (always a bit of a poison chalice in the first week as you don’t know your team). Paul Sullivan seemed happy to take on the role for the boys (who named themselves “Titan”) where as Michelle Niziol was more reluctant to lead the newly christened “Nebula”. What makes candidates think these names are good??

Many years ago, Bruce Tuckman came up with his theory of Team Development. The first stage of team development (when the team comes together) he called the “Forming” stage. It is characterised by “ritual sniffing” where members cautiously get to know each other. Behaviour is generally positive, but the team looks to the leader to give clear direction, so a direct almost autocratic style of leadership is desirable. Paul took this to heart and led his team with confidence in his own abilities and a very decisive style. On the negative side, he was not too interested in listening to feedback from the team. Michelle, on the other hand, was initially far more democratic in her approach, often steering or guiding, rather than setting a firm direction of travel. Where as Paul was very clear about strategy, Michelle was more vague, at least at first. This was most readily characterised in the approach to valuing and pricing the items. The girls, especially in the Market team led by Alana, had NO pricing strategy. They had no idea of the value of items, so set prices at random and made no attempt to really negotiate. They were definitely going for volume rather than value. The boys approach was the opposite. They carefully priced the items and led by Market team sub-lead Sofia Khelfa and were strong negotiators, being prepared to walk away rather than sell for less that they valued the item.

Michelle did eventually reveal her directive side, when she bizarrely decide to ignore the expert advice to sell to traders at Portobello Road and go to Camden instead! Michelle attributed this, and other decisions to “gut feel” and this approach eventually led to their downfall.

In the board room it was revealed that the girls had lost the task. Some poor leadership, and possibly a bit of fortune for the boys (they were awful in trying to sell to Trade, going to the wrong area (Chelsea) and trying to sell to the wrong people i.e. not the decision maker) cost the girls and all that remained was to identify who would be fired.

Michelle was on a sticky wicket (losing PMs in Week 1 often pay the price for failure) but chose to bring back Rebecca who was anonymous in the task, but came out fighting in the board room. She also brought back sub-team leader Alana, who was responsible for the disaster at the Market. Inevitable, Michelle was fired. It was the right decision. Michelle made 2 critical errors; firstly she adopted the wrong leadership style. She needed to be more directive. Secondly, she mistook “abdication” for “delegation”. Michelle was unaware of the disasters at the Market, and as such she was more guilty than the ineffective Alana. What do you think?

In another first across 11 series of The Apprentice, the result this week was a tie. Both teams failed to take any orders, so both teams lost.

The task was for each team to design and pitch a new healthy snack. In a battle of the ex-navy candidates, hair salon owner Charleine Wain took on the role of PM for Versatile, with Brett (the builder) Butler-Smythe assuming the role for Connexus. With only 3 people in each team, this inevitably meant that sub-teams could consist of only one person. Digital Marketer Richard Woods jumped at the chance to finally be in complete control of branding for Connexus. Charleine took sole responsibility for product design (ingredients and production). In reality, this was where the problems started for each team; the lack of a second person to counsel or challenge meant that both Richard and Charleine made mistakes that cost the their respective teams orders. For Charleine it was an anarchic approach to adding ingredients, which meant that it was impossible to make any health claims about their health bar! For Richard, he chose to ignore the fundamental USP of their healthy alternative to crisps – they are raw and dehydrated, not cooked. It could be said that this is down to the PM, and in that situation, as PM, I would prefer to be able to move between the 2 sub teams to coordinate and implement the vision and strategy. I’m not sure if it is a practical or logistical problem, if it is not allowed in the rules, of if they never think of it, but it happens week after week.

In the end, both products were poor and rightly got no orders. The non-crisps were too oily (thanks to Varna) and the health bar too dry. Both teams had problems with their health claims, and Joseph even resorted to lying (though I think he missed the subtlety of ex- Tesco man Gary Poulton telling him that not mentioning facts was not same as misrepresenting them) in one pitch.

There are some interesting (and possibly controversial) points to be made about education in this series. Or at least communication skills. Richard is clever and seems to intimidate some of the more poorly educated colleagues. Stand up Brett, who effectively fell on his sword rather than blame Richard for a fundamental and arrogant decision NOT to include the term “raw” on the branding. Brett sounds like a TV copper from the 1960s giving evidence in court “on the evening of the 5th I was proceeding in a northerly direction…”. He is a very poor communicator, and comes across as poorly educated. Similarly, Charleine does not always communicate well, but she does have a fighting attitude. We saw the stress getting to her this week as she thought she was getting fired. Any other week she would have been. Joseph is nice but his lack of education or even intelligence led him to lying in the pitch. It is difficult to see these three surviving the interviews next week.

Brett preferred being fired to blaming Richard. Laudable or Naive?

One person who definitely won’t be there is Brett, who as PM took the bullet for his team’s failure. He left “with honour” but nothing else. I’m surprised he has survived this long.

My money is on Varna and Richard for the final, depending on their business plan of course, but they seem best equipped to survive cross examination. As for Gary, Lord Sugar keeps referring to him as “corporate”. I’m not sure why this is a problem for a man who runs a corporation, but it seems his card is marked.

Well, what an interesting and unusual week on The Apprentice 2015 this week proved to be! Two candidates left the process; one fired from the losing team in the usual manner and one who quit from the winning team. And, news of the quitting was leaked on the day of broadcast.

This leaves 6 candidates remaining for the final 3 weeks of the competition.

In another first for the series, the teams became estate agents selling luxury and mid-range properties in London. The team earning the highest commission would win.

To balance the teams, Selina Waterman-Smith was asked to move from Connexus to Versatile. This was preceded with clips of both Selina and Charlene Wain stating that they dreaded ending up in the same team. The level of tension between these two has risen to outright bitchiness in recent weeks. Joseph Valente was keen to take on the role of PM. Richard Woods successfully lobbied for role in Connexus.

After a bit of discussion and strategising, the 8 candidates effectively became 4 pairs for the rest of the programme. For Versatile, Joseph was sensible and kept Selina and Charleine apart. Joseph accepted Selina’s desire to sell the high-end properties, leaving Gary and an unhappy Charleine (she wanted to sell the high-end properties too) to sell the mid-range properties in south London. In Connexus, Richard and Varna took on the high end properties, leaving Scott and Brett to sell mid-range in south London.

For the high end properties, the first step was to secure the right to act on behalf off the developers. Richard and (especially) Varna Koutsomitis applied passion and enthusiasm to charm the developers. Joseph was more direct and practical, preferring to discuss commission. Selina added nothing. Not surprisingly, Richard and Varna had their choice of developers, and secured the Canary Wharf properties that both teams desired. Versatile were left with the Stratford properties; still high-end but in a more up and coming area. In terms of location, Canary Wharf is more desirable.

In terms of selling, the process is the same whatever the product you are selling.

You have to make a connection with the buyer. The buyer has to trust you and be able to identify with you. This is not just about introducing yourself, but also about establishing rapport. Joseph was instructed by the developer to dress in a way that the high end clients would expect; don’t wear braces!

Next you have to understand what the buyer is looking for, and this requires asking good questions, but also listening to what they say and how they say it. This will give you clues to what’s important to them.

If you know what they are looking for, you can position your product to match these needs. Scott Saunders made the cardinal error of not knowing his product. He had to be rescued several times by Brett because he was misleading the clients.

Having answered any remaining questions, the last step is to seek a commitment from the buyer. Charleine was especially good at this, not being afraid to ask for the business in a strong, assertive manner.

Richard & Varna managed to sell high end properties using the same approach that secured them the Canary Wharf location in the first place. Joseph manage to sell a high end property in Stratford, but Selina was more of an observer, constantly blaming everyone else for her lack of success. Yes again, there were scenes of Selina and Charleine arguing, back in the house or on the phone.

In the boardroom the sales and commissions were calculated and it was no surprise that Connexus won convincingly, predominantly from the high end sales of Richard & Varna. However, as part of the

Scott came the first candidate to quit from a winning team

review Lord Sugar had been in a particularly challenging mood, with Scott’s shortcomings this week coming in for special mention. Despite being in the winning team, Scott was told that he was lucky to be in the process. As his team mates left to celebrate victory, Scott remained seated and then shocked everyone by quitting. He said very little – thanking Lord Sugar for the opportunity, then departing without even saying goodbye to his team mates. Later, in the taxi and on “You’re Fired” he suggested that he had realised he was out of his depth and his heart wasn’t in it. He probably saw the writing on the wall. Whatever his reasons, this was a first for the series.

For Versatile, there was the post mortem in the cafe. Everyone agreed that Selina had added nothing to the process and that she was manipulative – finding ways to blame other people rather than accept responsibility for her own failings. It was no surprise that Selina was brought back into the boardroom by Joseph, with Gary making up the final three. His sales did not stack up to those of Charleine.

It was no surprise that Lord Sugar fired Selina – her lack of success alone made her vulnerable, but her lack of personal accountability and general bitchiness along with a tendency to sit on the side lines, sealed her fate. Where Selina has had success it has been as PM, but too often she has been poison in whichever team she as attached to.

Selina – fired in week 9

Selina refused to honour her contract and appear on “You’re Fired”. Presumably, she preferred to stay in Dubai where she lives. Instead, in the run up to the day of broadcast, she tried to sell her story, have a go at the producers and (coincidentally) it was leaked that Scott had quit. Taken together, these events reinforce Selina’s lack of character and good riddance.

As for Scott, he did have a bad week, and the criticism was deserved, but I suspect that his was an emotional response. He seemed to lose his energy or enthusiasm in later weeks, as though his heart wasn’t in it. Possibly he lacked the emotional intelligence (resilience) to last the process. I’m sure that that is what LordSugar would say.

As for the remaining candidates, Richard remains strong, but Charleine may yet prove to be the dark horse. Her determination and resolve is formidable. Don’t rule out Varna either.